


There'll Be Somebody There to Break Your Fall

by indevan



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: Catharsis, Getting Together, Introspection, M/M, Past Abuse, discussion of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27887743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: He doesn’t know why he rises to Floyd’s challenges, why the mere presence of him gets under his skin.  No, not rises.  Stoops.  He falls to Floyd’s level of not caring about how his actions have consequences and now here he is.Saturday detention
Relationships: Floyd Leech/Riddle Rosehearts
Comments: 6
Kudos: 99





	There'll Be Somebody There to Break Your Fall

**Author's Note:**

> this technically takes place after [Proving a Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275827), and some parts of it are referenced but it isn't necessary to read that one before this one! this is also a chance for me to fit in some of my headcanons ;0;

Riddle can’t believe it. His mother is going to kill him. She is going to pull him out of school and kill him. Even the talk he had tried to have with her over the holidays will have no effect. He is dead. And he let himself fall into it.

He doesn’t know why he rises to Floyd’s challenges, why the mere presence of him gets under his skin. No, not rises. Stoops. He falls to Floyd’s level of not caring about how his actions have consequences and now here he is.

Saturday detention.

It’s only fitting that it’s held in the library, the scene of the crime. Floyd taunting him, teasing, laughing and smiling while he held the book aloft.

“Let’s play tag!” he’d said.

Riddle wanted to sit back and continue his studying and research, but somehow Floyd _always_ knows how to get to him and there he was, chasing after him with his long, loping legs and mocking laugh. And now he’s here, in a place he never thought he would be. The library isn’t closed on the weekends in case people want to study but all the times Riddle has been here, it’s been nearly empty except during revisions. If anyone was studying on the weekends, it was typically in their own dorm common rooms where revisions became a collaborative effort.

There’s no one here now as Riddle makes his way to one of the long tables set up in the more open center of the library. At least, no one but his fellow delinquents.

He purposely sits at an empty table, despite Floyd waving to him wildly from his own seat and pointing to the chair next to him. Leona Kingscholar is also present, which is surprising--not that his constant skipping of class eventually landed him in detention, but that he’s _shown up_ for detention. Ruggie Bucchi is seated with him, chin propped up in his hands. The only other occupant is Silver who is squinting and swaying slightly back and forth in what is clearly an effort to keep himself awake.

“Hey, Goldfishie!” Floyd calls.

He pretends not to hear him. Riddle is in _detention,_ but he isn’t going to make it worse for himself. He knows, in theory, that Professor Trein is supposed to be in charge of detention, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Trein never shows up,” Ruggie says as if reading his mind. “Lucious has his cat book club on Saturdays and he says hosting that is more important.”

He says this with ease and punctuates it with his trademark laugh.

“Then what’s to stop people from leaving?” he asks.

He shrugs. “Honor system.”

Riddle casts a dubious look at Leona who fields his look by curling his upper lip over one of his sharp canines.

“And when we get detention, Crowley spells our magipens so we can’t leave.”

_There it is._

Ruggie gets up--a flagrant disregard for the rules of detention, or so Riddle assumes--and makes his way over to him. He leans on the table where Riddle is sitting and grins broadly.

“I gotta know, though. What did you of all people do to get detention?”

Riddle glares over his shoulder to Floyd, who’s still waving like he’s drowning at sea and Riddle is the coast guard he’s trying to flag down. Or maybe that’s a bad analogy, considering Floyd is a merperson. Floyd seems to read his glare as permission to jump up from his own seat and amble over to join Ruggie.

“We were playing in the library,” he says.

Ruggie raises his eyebrows.

_“Oh?”_

Without meaning to, Riddle slams both of his palms down on the polished wood of the table.

“Not that kind! Floyd decided he wanted to play tag with the book I was reading and--ugh! It’s all your fault!” he blurts. “I’ve never had detention before!”

“So? D’you want a plaque?” Leona asks in his typical drawl.

“Principal Crowley was making me one,” he says back in a flat voice.

At his own table, Silver shudders and shakes himself awake. Riddle can guess how he ended up in detention.

Floyd slips into the chair across from him, straddling it backwards.

“I’ll make you a plaque, goldfishie,” he says and grins that big, toothy grin of his.

It makes sense, in some manner, that Floyd perceives their relationship as more than it is. They did, after all, spend the night together even if all they did was fall asleep in Riddle’s bed after some light making out due to their combined inebriation. Riddle had had to endure being part of the rumor mill until Floyd’s terrifying reputation shut people up. Something he’s good for, at least. Since then, though, there hasn’t been any other...incidents. Riddle can admit that he probably fancies him, but he won’t go any further. Especially not when Floyd is intent on continuing to bug him and _is the reason_ he’s in detention at all.

“No, thank you,” he says with a sniff.

Floyd looks like he’s about to say something, but before he can speak, the pop and hiss of a can being opened cuts through the otherwise quiet library. Riddle, along with the three others, turn towards Silver, who has popped the top on a can of soda. He knows that he ought to scold his fellow equestrian club member for drinking in the library, but who is he to talk? Riddle is a delinquent, too, after all. Silver slurps the bit of soda that’s filled the brim at the top of his can from opening it and then reaches into his bag. He produces a plastic spoon and a small tin of instant coffee crystals. He unscrews the lid and dips the spoon in before carefully spooning the contents into his soda. Riddle feels his eyes simultaneously widen and his brow furrow. A quick glance to Floyd, Ruggie, and Leona confirms that they’re all wearing the same expression. Silver looks at him with luminescent eyes of his.

“What?”

Riddle, along with the other four of them, turn away.

“He worries me sometimes,” Ruggie says with a shake of his head.

“How did you get detention?” Floyd asks.

The shock of Silver mixing instant coffee into his soda has apparently worn off of him, and he’s onto whatever the next object of his fancy is. Riddle finds that infuriating about him, because Floyd loses interest so quickly in everything but him.

“I skipped my last period for work,” Ruggie says. “I got a job helping Sam out and I figured Vargas wouldn’t miss me, but. He did.”

“Didn’t you get a leave or a pass?” Riddle asks. “Sam is part of the faculty so it should be okay.”

Ruggie shook his head and turned his hand out.

“Nah, I didn’t think of it. Which is why I got detention, ‘cause Sam also thought that. Next time, I guess.”

Riddle isn’t sure why Ruggie is so obsessed with finding work. He thinks it might have to do with why he leaves on breaks with all of the nearly expired food, but they aren’t close so he doesn’t ask.

“I fell asleep in class,” Silver says without prompting. He noisily slurps his soda and adds, “In case you thought it was anything else.”

Leona curls his lip again but doesn’t answer. He folds his arms over his chest and leans back in his seat.

“Skipping,” Ruggie fills in. “Crewel found him in the botanical gardens sleeping and hit him with one of those spray bottles.”

He laughs, which makes Leona let loose a growl from low in his throat.

“I’m surprised he showed up,” Riddle says.

“Fuck off,” Leona says, but his voice lacks any real heat.

Ruggie laughs.

“Not showing up for detention gets you suspended and the royal family can’t have that,” he explains. “It’s bad enough that, if he keeps up how he’s been, we’ll be classmates next year.”

Leona, who’s slipped low in his seat, laconically flips Ruggie off. The action doesn’t seem to dissuade him, because he keeps talking. He puts the back of his hand next to his mouth and begins stage whispering as if Leona can’t hear him.

“My theory is that he just doesn’t want to go home,” he says.

“Fuck off,” Leona repeats, a little more agitated this time.

A shiver works its way down Riddle’s spine. He’s seen Leona get mad, right before he overblotted and nearly choked them out with sand.

“My other theory is that if he _actually_ puts forth any effort, he could probably take over the world so he’s really this lazy as a public service to the rest to us.”

Leona scrapes his chair up and slams both hands down on the table. Ruggie straightens for a moment before his posture relaxes again. He doesn’t seem at all bothered when Leona comes and brings a hand down heavily on his shoulder.

“I know where you sleep, Ruggie,” he says in a low, dangerous voice.

“I know where you sleep, too. Anywhere.” Ruggie laughs again and then winces as Leona’s fingers dig into his shoulder. “Ow, ow!”

Leona releases him but, instead of going back to his seat, he drops into the one next to Floyd. Riddle wishes they would all leave him alone. Floyd hasn’t spoken in a bit--miracle of miracles--but he keeps looking at Riddle. The expression on his face is different from normal, he notes, and one he can’t place. Floyd is nearly frowning and his brows are drawn down, a slight furrow appearing between them. He looks a bit like someone trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult magical equation or alchemical property, but why is he looking at _Riddle_ like that?

_Maybe because of how you’ve been jerking him around…_

The voice in his head--that, somehow, sounds like Trey and thankfully not like his mother--chastises him. That’s...true, Riddle allows. But he doesn’t think he’s going to wind up in a situation again where he lets Floyd kiss him, kisses him back, and stays in the same bed with him. He got enough grief from some of the members of the dorm, accusing him of breaking the rules he held to such a high degree. The fallout was mortifying, but in the midst of it...Riddle had been buzzed, but he could still remember the feeling of Floyd’s lips on his, how his sharp teeth grazed Riddle’s tongue but didn’t bite down. He feels flushed all of a sudden and wishes he had something to drink--something that isn’t that revolting concoction Silver made.

“So what’s the deal with you two?” Ruggie asks.

His voice has that mocking edge to it and, at first, Riddle doesn’t want to answer. But the other option is Floyd answering and he sees him: opening his mouth, drawing in a breath. He has to head him off.

“Nothing,” he says quickly. _“Nothing.”_

Floyd’s mouth falls shut and he adopts that look again. Riddle realizes now where he’s seen it before. In this library, a while ago. When he said how he couldn’t believe that he and Jade were related. Floyd’s dejected face, the slumped shoulders, the overall miserable posture. He was upset.

“Really?” Ruggie asks. “‘Cause I heard you two did it.”

“We didn’t,” Riddle assures him. He can’t bring himself to say it. His face is already heating up. “I’ve never…”

Floyd’s pout disappears and he tips his head to the side.

“Ehh? Goldfishie’s never done it?” he asks.

“I-is that such a big deal?” Riddle demands. He slams his fist down on the table. “I’m seventeen!”

“Some seventeen-year-olds have sex,” Ruggie says, snickering.

“Well, I haven’t!” Riddle snaps.

He doesn’t want to say that Floyd was his first kiss. That’s even more embarrassing.

“I haven’t either,” Floyd admits.

For a moment, he thinks he’s having him on, but--no, he isn’t lying. Somehow, Riddle is sure of it.

“I mean, you’ve only had legs and junk for, like, a year,” Ruggie says. He frowns and reaches up to scratch behind one of his ears. “And--actually, I don’t know how that works with eel bits.”

Floyd drums his fingers on the back of the chair he’s straddling and shrugs.

“Someone lays the egg, someone else swims over and fertilizes them.” He makes motions with his hands. “‘Cept we’re merpeople so it’s only one egg. Not a whole a bunch. And the parents don’t die afterwards.”

The mention of parents reminds Riddle of something else Floyd had said that night, about his mother.

“So you and Jade were, what? In the same egg?”

He nods.

“Yeah. We’re special.”

He gives a toothy grin.

“So two virgins--hey, what about you?” Ruggie asks, calling over his shoulder.

Silver blinks at him for a moment as if he wasn’t quite listening.

“I haven’t,” he says. Yawns and adds, “I’ve mostly only been with my father and then Lord Malleus and Sebek.”

“And Lilia,” Ruggie says.

Silver flicks his finger against the aluminum side of his can and says, “Right. I didn’t mention him yet.”

“Have you?” Riddle asks.

He wishes he could say it in a way that sounded cool and not petulant. That first year, Ace, he was always running his mouth and speaking roughly, but his delivery was far better than anything Riddle could come up with. Not that he would tell him that. Ruggie looks at him and, for a moment, he almost looks scared. Leona lets out a snarl.

“Listen--”

Ruggie cuts him off with a shake of his head and Riddle is a bit impressed at the way he easily talks back to him and gets Leona to go along with him. He’s always imagined it in the reverse, Ruggie sighing and shaking his head as he does whatever Leona tells him to do.

“I asked them. S’only fair.” Ruggie turns his hand out. “Yeah. Not with anyone I care about, but I have.”

“Eh?” Floyd asks. “You didn’t care about them?”

Ruggie spreads his palm down flat on the desk and stares at the back of his hand for a moment. It’s the first time Riddle has ever seen him be completely still.

“Yeah. When you grow up where I do...sometimes, it’s.” He closes his hand into a fist. “It is what it is.”

Riddle doesn’t get what he’s saying--or, rather, what he isn’t--but he has a slight idea. He nearly misses it but he sees Leona’s fingers briefly brush against his elbow before he crosses his arms again.

In the time he was speaking, Silver has wandered over to them, still taking sips from his soda.

“That looks nasty,” Ruggie says, voice sharp and loud in a clear bid to change the subject.

Silver nods, closing his eyes as he does.

“It is.” He opens them and his eyes seem sharper. Riddle has seen him like that before, when they were racing during club activities. “I don’t want to be the type of person who falls asleep and gets detention for it.”

He takes another sip of his soda and winces as he swallows.

“I made an awakening potion, but the ingredients are hard to come by and it only helped for so long,” he says. “Kalim and Jamil helped.”

Ruggie shakes his head.

“Of course Jamil was there or else the two of you wouldn’t get anything done.”

Riddle has to agree. He doesn’t want to be in the same class as Silver and Kalim separately, let alone together.

“Sometimes I worry about falling asleep and not waking up,” Silver says it so quietly, it’s only his close proximity to them that allows Riddle to hear it.

\--

Somehow, and Riddle isn’t sure exactly how, the five of them have migrated to sitting on the floor. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but there’s been smatterings of conversation. Thankfully whatever passed between he and Floyd hasn’t been brought up again, but he knows Floyd keeps making obvious glances at him. For being a part of the calculating trio from Octavinelle, Floyd’s expressions are fairly easy to read. When Riddle dares to meet them, he looks confused and put out, like a puppy who peed all over the carpet, but still isn’t sure why they’ve been put in the backyard.

“This hardly feels like punishment,” Riddle says as a means to distract.

Predictably, Ruggie responds with his typical laughter.

“Yeah? I mean, not every punishment has to be one of those ugly collars of yours.” Ruggie shrugs. “What do you want? Us all to write a thousand word essay about what we did wrong?”

Leona, who’s reclining on his back, lifts only his hand to slug Ruggie on the arm.

“Don’t give him any ideas,” he says, not even opening his eyes.

Ruggie rubs the sore arm, but his smirk hasn’t diminished. Without Trein here, they’re simply prisoners of the empty library, it seems, stuck with only each other. Riddle wagers that it could be worse, but he isn’t sure. So far he’s been crowded and had probing questions about his virginity. But it can’t get much worse.

“Is Heartslaybul freaking out ‘cause you’ve got detention?”

Riddle drops his head. Of course Ruggie would bring this up. Can’t stop talking, that one. He would have thought it would be Floyd with the constant questions and talking, but he’s still looking at him in this strangely vulnerable way that Riddle doesn’t quite want to acknowledge.

“Possibly,” he says. “They were already getting mad about…”

“Oh, right, the sleeping together but not thing.”

“Shut up,” Floyd says suddenly, sharply.

Ruggie looks momentarily startled, his ears perked up and even his small tail is straight up. He relaxes his posture a moment later.

“Oh, heh, I guess I am running my mouth...it gets like that sometimes.” He holds Riddle’s gaze for a moment. “Sorry.”

From his supine position, Leona adds, “It’s a hyena thing.”

“Oi--hey!” Ruggie shakes his head. “No, it’s a Bucchi thing. We talk and talk. My grandma said my mom was like that, too, but I don’t remember her much.”

Floyd cocks his head to the side.

“Ehh, why? Is she dead?”

Despite his attempts to ignore him, Riddle can’t help but prod Floyd in the side.

“Floyd!”

He nearly mentions what the slightly inebriated Floyd said to him about his own mother, but he doesn’t. Ruggie, though, merely blinks his eyes once, then again, before shrugging.

“Who knows? Maybe.”

“What?”

Riddle looks to Leona for any sort of confirmation, but he seems to be asleep or, at the very least, is ignoring them. He feels a bit bad for blurting out his question after he had just poked Floyd for saying so, but Ruggie’s answer was so strange.

“My grandma took me away from my mom when I was three? Maybe four?” He shrugs again. “I dunno. All of it blurs together after my dad died.”

“Your dad?” Silver asks in that quiet, serious-sounding voice of his.

Riddle has heard him mention his father on several occasions--he knows enough that Silver loves and respects him a lot.

“Yeah. Or at least who my mom decided was my dad. I don’t know if he actually was and I don’t think my mom knew either.”

The way he’s talking and looking past them, not at them, makes something in Riddle’s chest clench in a way that he can’t explain.

“What happened?” Floyd asks. He cocks his head to the side again and, briefly, Riddle wonders how he does it so often without pulling something in his neck.

Ruggie reaches up to scratch his ears again.

“I don’t really remember. My dad was on the couch and I was trying to wake him up from his nap, but he wasn’t waking up. My grandma came in and I, like, complained to her. Y’know, like little kids do and she saw that he was dead.”

“In his sleep?” Silver’s hand clenches around his nearly empty can.

He shakes his head.

“Don’t worry, sleeping beauty. My dad OD’d. There were these guys who’d come over and they were always nice to me and crap and I never realized they were drug dealers ‘til later.”

Ruggie cracks his knuckles and jams his hands into the pockets of his blazer.

“Anyway, my grandma took me away from my mom and basically cut off all contact with her so I dunno if she’s alive or not.”

Floyd leans in.

“Do you ever wanna find her?”

Again, Riddle thinks about what he said to him and wonders if he remembers it.

“Dunno. She’s never tried to reach out to me if she’s alive despite knowing where I live so, fuck her, I guess.” Ruggie lets out a shaky, quieter version of his usual laugh. “This is why I avoid getting detention whenever I can. Shit like this always comes out.”

Riddle can only imagine. There’s something about sitting here, on the floor, with the stacks looming above them. The isolation of it, the closeness of the other people. He presses his lips shut as if to avoid his own confession.

“I haven’t talked to my mom either,” Floyd says. “Not since me and Jade were ten, at least.”

He remembers that.

“What happened?”

Floyd shrugs. “Don’t feel like telling.”

Which means there’s no way of getting it out of him. Riddle figures it isn’t really any of their business anyway. Who are they to each other other than stuck in this weird, heady atmosphere? They’re individual pairs: Ruggie and Leona and he and Silver are in the same club and he and Floyd...anyway. But together, they’re just disjointed people in a library on a Saturday morning.

“My stepmom’s alright, though,” Floyd says. “She worries a bit much, but she’s nice. She’s good to us and my dad.”

He smiles a bit when he mentions his father. Riddle thinks of his own. His father’s tired eyes and tense demeanor when they sit down to family dinner. Each bite is a wince. His mother needling him, him fighting back or else just surrendering. Him no longer playing Riddle much mind. And his mother. Keeping him indoors and away from children his own age, from sweets, from Halloween celebrations. If she finds out she’s in detention, then it’ll be off with _his_ head. He had tried to talk to her over break, but she had always changed the subject. How, before, he was so stuck under her that Ace’s words cut double.

Riddle doesn’t realize that he’s pressed his fingers against his eyes until they begin to pulse. Someone--Floyd, probably--takes his wrists in their hands and gently pulls them down. He blinks away the purple afterimages and he was right. Floyd is the one holding wrists. His hands make Riddle’s seem small and he fights the urge to ball his fists.

“Goldfishie,” he says.

Floyd tugs him and then, to Riddle’s horror, reaches down to pick him up by his middle and place him in his lap. With nowhere for his legs to go but on either side of Floyd, he finds himself straddling him and facing him, their chests nearly touching.

“Floyd!” he bleats.

“You’re thinking about your mom, huh?”

“I’m--put me down! This is indecent!”

“I just want to make you feel better.” Floyd closes his eyes and grins widely.

He strokes Riddle’s back through his uniform blazer, his hands somehow cool. It reminds Riddle of how he held his face between his hands when he kissed him or the coolness of them on the small of Riddle’s back where he had felt so, so warm.

“He’s been avoiding me,” Floyd says.

“I have not.”

“Have so. Kept me from doing this.”

He leans down and kisses the corner of Riddle’s mouth. He feels blood and heat flood his face.

“Floyd!” he hisses. “Not here!”

Floyd gives him that pout again.

“Then where? I _like_ kissing you, Goldfishie.”

“Later,” he says to him. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Riddle turns so he can face the little circle they had made, but he doesn’t move. He leans back against Floyd’s chest. It feels...nice. The coolness of him and the way he’s drumming his long, thin fingers along the side of Riddle’s arm. Plus, he doesn’t want to deal with trying to climb off of him only for Floyd to whine and tug him back down.

Silver doesn’t join in on commiserating about parents, but maybe he feels like it isn’t nice to rub how close he is with his father in their faces after what Ruggie said and what Floyd _didn’t_ say.

“Blah blah blah,” Leona says with a yawn. He sits up enough to lean back on his hands.

Ruggie screws his mouth to the side.

“Do you wanna join in? You can tell them the carousel story.”

“The what?” Riddle asks.

“Fuck off,” Leona says and bares his teeth.

“All the members of the royal family and lesser nobles took their kids to the park,” Ruggie says, “and there was a carousel.”

“Shut up.” Leona doesn’t move from his spot, but Riddle can feel energy radiating off of him that is decidedly not good.

“And his brother and all the firstborn noble kids get the nice, sherbert-colored horses while Leona and the kid of the Pyroxene ambassador get stuck with the ugly turd-colored ones.”

“Ruggie, shut the _fuck_ up!” he roars.

Ruggie immediately shuts his mouth. Images flash through Riddle’s head: sand swirling in a gritty, blinding vortex. A roar echoing throughout the arena. The air is dry, so dry, and the memory of it almost makes Riddle start coughing in the library.

“Sorry,” Ruggie mutters.

“Just fuck off,” he says. “All of you. Yeah, it sucks. Everyone’s life sucks. I love hearing servants going on about how I wasn’t supposed to be born. That the queen made the ‘wrong’ decision in keeping me.”

“What?” Silver asks. “Did your parents find you?”

“No, dipshit,” Leona snaps. “I wasn’t planned. My parents had an heir and they didn’t want a spare but, whoops, here I come anyway.”

Ruggie reaches out to pat his shoulder but Leona shrugs him away.

“It all sucks. Your mom sucks, your mom sucks, I guess yours does, too, but you won’t say shit, eel-punk. Sleepy over there has it fine but has to chug that nasty shit just to stay awake. And you two with your ‘wah, wah, he’s avoiding me after we didn’t sleep together or whatever.’ It all fucking sucks and I’m sick of this fucking circlejerk of whining about it.”

“Oh, shut up!” Riddle snaps without meaning to.

Leona’s eyes flash dangerously.

“What was that?”

Floyd’s hands have stopped tapping on his sleeve and are now wrapped around him, almost protectively. Riddle isn’t sure what to think about that.

“You sleep away the entire time here and then just spew this absolute shit!”

“Whoa, Rosehearts swore!” Ruggie exclaims.

“It does suck,” Silver says, “But I feel better talking about it, I think.”

“Me too,” Ruggie agrees. “But that’s also why I hate this place.”

Floyd doesn’t say anything but he leans his head forward over Riddle’s shoulder.

“Talk to Goldfishie like that again and I’ll squeeze you,” he says, his voice has dropping to a low, dangerous register.

Leona seems unbothered and simply smirks.

“I’d love to see you try.” He turns his gaze to Riddle and says, “Guess you’re right. Part of that whole overblot bullshit was me wallowing in self pity and I’m sick of it.”

“Right…”

Riddle eyes him skeptically, not buying his change of tune.

“But yell at me like that again and I will tear your throat out.”

_There it is._

“Do it and I’ll squeeze you so hard your smug little lion head pops off,” Floyd says.

“Macho, macho,” Ruggie says, shaking his head. “Both of you stop with the threats.”

Silver nods his agreement. He jerks his head slightly as if noticing something and reaches into his blazer pocket for his magipen.

“We can go,” he says.

“We can?” Riddle asks.

Ruggie nods, holding up his own pen.

“Yeah, detention’s over. See? Our magipens aren’t red anymore.”

Riddle reaches for his own.

“They turn red in detention?” He extracts it from his pocket.

His is red but that’s the color it is normally. At the sight of it the other four laugh, even Leona.

“Maybe they should have thought of Heartslaybul when making that spell,” Ruggie says.

“And Scarabia,” Silver adds. “Theirs are kind of red, too.”

Riddle places his pen back in his pocket and gets to his feet. Floyd stands up, looming over him as he normally does. Then, he offers Riddle his hand. Riddle stares at it for a minute, thinking about the rumor mill and Floyd and his taunts and how he landed him in detention in the first place. Then he thinks about how he felt leaning against him or the way his lips met his. He pictures his mother’s disapproval and his father who sometimes doesn’t even notice he’s there. Riddle reaches out and takes Floyd’s hand.

Floyd laces their fingers together and it feels--nice. Good. Riddle has to walk double time to keep up with his loping steps, but it’s easier than being dragged around by the wrist like Floyd does normally.

“C’mon,” Ruggie says. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Who wants to get something to drink from the Mystery Shop?”

“No,” Floyd says. “Mostro Lounge. We have a new drink Azul came up with.”

“Sure. Leona’s treat. _Shi shi--_ ow!”

Riddle isn’t sure that anything life altering happened in detention, but he knows that he isn’t the same. Ruggie was right: something about the atmosphere for the library in hours of isolation like that brings out confessions. He certainly didn’t expect that he would be walking hand in hand with Floyd Leech after that, but here he is.

Even so, Riddle gives the library one last look over his shoulder and shakes his head. He will not ruin his record with another detention, no matter how cathartic it can possibly be. And, anyway, who needs that much catharsis anyway?

“Goldfishie, c’mon! Move those little legs!”

Riddle whips his head to glare at Floyd. He squeezes his hand as tightly as he can.

_“Little?!”_

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter](http://twitter.com/smugsnail)


End file.
